The Bureau of Land Management’s National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board starts today in Redmond, Oregon.
Wednesday, April 13, from 1 p.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time
Thursday, April 14, from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. Pacific Time
You can watch the live stream of the meeting at http://www.blm.gov/live.
AGENDA
Wednesday, April 13, 2016
1:00 pm –
Welcome and Introductions, Fred Woehl, Chair, Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board
Agenda Review, Kathie Libby, Facilitator
BLM Opening Remarks, Kristin Bail, Designated Federal Officer, Acting Assistant Director, Resources & Planning, BLM
Welcome/Introduction to Oregon, Lee Folliard, Acting Deputy State Director, Oregon, BLM
Oregon Wild Horse and Burro Program, Robert Sharp and Bob Hopper, Co-State Leads, Oregon, BLM
1:50 pm – Approval of Minutes from September, 2015 Meeting, Fred Woehl, Chair Decision
2:00 pm – BLM Response to Advisory Board Recommendations, Dean Bolstad, Division Chief, Wild Horse and Burro Program, BLM
2:30 pm – Wild Horse and Burro Program Update, Dean Bolstad, Division Chief, Wild Horse and Burro Program, BLM
3:00 pm – Break
3:15 pm – 4:45 pm – Public Comment Period
4:45 pm – BLM Wild Horse and Burro Adoption Demand Study Research, Update from contractor Lori Mitchell Dixon, Ph.D, President of Great Lakes Marketing Research
5:15 pm – Adjourn
***********
Thursday, April 14, 2016
8:00 am – Welcome, Fred Woehl, Chair
8:05 am – U.S Forest Service Update, Barry Imler, Rangeland Program Manager, USFS and Amanda McAdams, Forest Supervisor for Modoc National Forest, USFS
8:50 am – Mustang Heritage Foundation Update, Kali Sublett, Exec. Dir. Mustang Heritage Foundation
9:20 am – Budget Update Renee Fuhrman, Acting Budget Specialist, Wild Horse & Burro Program, BLM
9:35 am – Research Update Paul Griffin, Research coordinator, Wild Horse & Burro Program, BLM (calling in remotely)
10:15 am – Break
10:30 am – On-Range Update, Bryan Fuell, On-Range Branch Chief, Wild Horse & Burro Program, BLM
11:15 am – Off-Range Update, Holle’ Hooks, Off-Range Branch Chief, Wild Horse & Burro Program, BLM
11:30 am – Wild Horse & Burro Webmap Update, Jason Lutterman, On-Range Public Affairs Specialist, Wild Horse & Burro Program, BLM
11:45 am – Wild Horse & Burro Update – Eastern States Office, Karlee Yurek, Branch Chief Natural Community Resources and Acting State Lead for Eastern States, BLM
12:00 – Lunch
1:00 pm – Ecosystem Services, Rebecca Moore, Economist Contributor to Wild Horse & Burro Program, BLM
1:45 pm – Working Group Reports
2: 45 pm – Break
3:00 pm – Advisory Board Discussion and Recommendations to the BLM
5:00 pm – Adjourn
Categories: Horse News, Uncategorized
Straight from the Horse's Heart 
Rob Sharp, BLM’s Burns holding facility in Burns Oregon is scheduled to give a presentation at the meeting today during the 1:00-2:00 hour. Take a GOOD look at him and know that he is one of the BLM that helped sell our wild horses to Tom Davis.
“In January [2012], the manager of the agency’s corral in Burns, Ore., emailed superiors in Washington, D.C., to ask what to do with 29 mares, almost all of which were pregnant. Spencer replied that Davis would take them.”
http://www.propublica.org/article/missing-what-happened-to-wild-horses-tom-davis-bought-from-the-govt
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It looks like the Burns, Oregon WH&B holding corrals are trying to clean themselves up. You and I just paid over $22,000 in the last couple of months for manure removal and janitorial services. They must be preparing for some “big-wigs” to come and watch the brutal and unnecessary cutting open of our wild mares?
Contract Description
BURNS WILD HORSE CORRALS MANURE REMOVAL THE CONTRACTOR SHALL PROVIDE ALL LABOR, SUPPLIES, MATERIALS, TRANSPORTATION, TOOLS AND EQUIPMENT NECESSARY TO PERFORM THE REQUIREMENTS OF THIS CONTRACT, TO INCLUDE THE LOADING, HAULING, AND DISPOSAL OF MANURE FROM THE WILD HORSE CORRALS.
Signed Date
1/25/2016
Obligated Amount
$16,014
Award Description
IGF::OT::IGF BURNS WILD HORSE CORRALS JANITORIAL
Obligated Amount
$5,988
usaspending.gov
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BLM Round Up of 1,400 Wild Horses, Beaty’s Butte, southern Oregon, Nov. 7, 2015
The roundup is being conducted to allow members of the Beatys Butte Grazing Association to run more cows on the public lands from which the wild horses are being removed.
Several members of the Grazing Association supply beef to Country Natural Beef, a Burns, Ore. supplier to Whole Foods. These ranches include
Roaring Springs Ranch,
the Fitzgerald Group, Fitzgerald Ranch and
Otley Brothers Ranch.
In a statement, AWHPC said: “Whole Foods’ sale of beef from entities that graze cattle on public lands in designated mustang habitat fuels a system that brutalizes these iconic animals and denies them a federally declared right to be free on our public lands. Clearly, this is not in line with Whole Foods’ customer values or its principles of Environmental Stewardship.”
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Principles of Veterinary Medical Ethics of the AVMA
https://www.avma.org/KB/Policies/Pages/Principles-of-Veterinary-Medical-Ethics-of-the-AVMA.aspx
I. A veterinarian shall be influenced only by the welfare of the patient, the needs of the client, the safety of the public, and the need to uphold the public trust vested in the veterinary profession; and shall avoid conflict of interest or the appearance thereof.
a. A veterinarian shall not allow any interests, especially financial interests, other than those mentioned above to influence the choice of treatment or animal care.
i. A veterinarian should consider the potential for creating a conflict of interest (or the appearance thereof) when deciding whether to participate in vendor incentive programs or other arrangements where the veterinarian receives a benefit for using or prescribing a particular product.
ii. The medical judgment of a veterinarian shall not be influenced by contracts or agreements made by their associations or societies.
iii. A veterinarian shall not offer or receive any financial incentive solely for the referral of a patient (fee-splitting).
Veterinarians must not defame or injure the professional standing or reputation of other veterinarians in a false or misleading manner. Veterinarians must be honest and fair in their relations with others, and they shall not engage in fraud, misrepresentation, or deceit.
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BLM’s Final Solution for the Wild Horses and Burros
http://animallawcoalition.com/blms-final-solution-for-the-wild-horses-and-burros/
BLM knew the aggressive sterilization of mares would mean an increased death rate of at least 10% and admitted that “herd behavior would be out the window”. BLM admitted, in effect, these aggressive sterilization plans would not only be potentially dangerous to the wild horses and burros, destructive of their herds and families, but also illegal and ultimately cause their extinction.
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This just makes me sick!!! That the BLM doesn’t even have the balls to play stupid!! To blatenly admit they know the damage and pain they are committing on these inosent animals.. Whose only desire is to live.. And should be allowed to live on the land that was provided for these protected animals since 1971..
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BLM WEIGHS WILD HORSE IMPACT MUCH MORE HEAVILY THAN CATTLE
Agency Sage Grouse Review Puts Thumb on Scale to Magnify Wild Horse and Burro Effects
Posted on Sep 16, 2014
http://www.peer.org/news/news-releases/blm-weighs-wild-horse-impact-much-more-heavily-than-cattle.html
The method used by the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to assess range conditions is seriously skewed toward minimizing impacts from domestic livestock and magnifying those from wild horses and burros, according to an appraisal by Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility (PEER). As a result, the BLM’s approach to range management targets scattered wild horses and burros while ignoring far more numerous cattle.
The agency’s assessment is part of a 2013 report on factors influencing conservation of the Greater Sage-Grouse, a ground-dwelling bird whose numbers have declined as much as 90% across the West and which is under consideration for protection under the Endangered Species Act. That report concludes that twice the area of sage grouse habitat is negatively impacted by wild horses and burros than the area negatively impacted by livestock. A PEER appraisal of the methodology found –
• BLM calculates the “area of influence” of wild horses and burros on sage grouse habitat based merely on their presence within Herd Management Areas in sage grouse habitat, while it considers livestock impact to have occurred only when livestock grazing allotments fail the agency’s Land Health Status (LHS) standard for wildlife;
• If the agency used the same approach for calculating the area of influence of livestock within BLM grazing allotments on sage grouse habitat as it did for wild horses and burros, the area of influence for livestock would be roughly 14 times that given in the report and more than six times that of wild horses and burros; and
• Within BLM’s own grazing allotment LHS database records, livestock grazing is cited as a cause of failure to achieve a land health standard 30 times more often than are wild horses and burros.
“At BLM apparently not all hooves are created equal,” said PEER’s Advocacy Director Kirsten Stade, noting that the LHS evaluations cover more than 20,000 grazing allotments and examine whether a grazing allotment meets the agency’s standards for rangeland health with respect to several vegetation and habitat conditions. “This helps explain why wild horses are regularly removed from the range but livestock numbers are rarely reduced.”
The BLM assessment influences not only the agency’s range management decisions but also will figure into the Fish and Wildlife Service’s decision on whether to list the sage grouse under the Endangered Species Act.
Last year in response to a complaint by PEER filed under agency Scientific Integrity policy, BLM claimed that it does not have enough “reliable data” about commercial livestock impacts to include them in current assessments of environmental conditions on Western range lands. Yet, BLM has more data on the grazing that it authorizes through permits than virtually every other topic.
“When it comes to cattle, BLM plays with a marked deck,” Stade added, pointing out the PEER analysis that will become part of PEER’s new grazing reform web center set to launch in several weeks. “We are posting BLM’s own data in a way that allows apples-to-apples comparisons while displaying satellite imagery that depicts the true livestock landscape impacts.”
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Straying Wild Horses and the Range Landowner:
The Search for Peaceful Coexistence
Alfred W. Buckley
William W. Buckley
In 1971 Congress passed Public Law 92-195, the Wild Free-Roaming
Horses and -Burros Act,’ to preserve a vanishing symbol of American
pioneer heritage.’ Before this statute was enacted, wild horses and burross
were in danger of extinction. Today the success of the Act has prompted
much controversy as to whether wild horses overpopulate the public
rangelands6 in the Western United States.6 Private landowners adjacent to
federal regions often complain that wild horses “stray” onto their parcels
and consume their forage and water.
While owners have the right to use and enjoy their property free from incursions,8 Congress intended protection of a living emblem of the Nation’s spirit to be of paramount importance.
http://scholarship.law.umt.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1074&context=plrlr
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Regarding AMLs and Removals
ECOLOGY LAW QUARTERLY
http://elq.typepad.com/currents/2011/02/currents38-02-wagmanmccurdy-2011-0215.html
Only under limited circumstances can the BLM actually remove horses from their designated herd area. While certain requirements are unclear and highly disputed, the agency must follow a multistep process to address wild horse populations. First, the BLM must obtain reliable information about the herd, environment and range conditions. From that evaluation they establish the AML, the appropriate number of horses for the land at issue. The AML is used to determine if “an overpopulation exists.” Next, “excess” animals must be identified.
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ARIZONA…Wild Burro Removals?
AZ BURROS IN THE CROSSHAIRS
MARJORIE FARABEE
FEBRUARY, 2016
My blood boils at the money spent on preserving the bighorn to the extent that the money is used to wipe out species deemed unworthy by these people who have God complexes. They scream, that the bighorn are endangered! They say, there are only 70,000 bighorn and they must be protected! How does this jive with their equally hysterical rants that the burros are “over populated”. They ring their hands and wonder how can the BLM can allow this gross overpopulation? There are 1,800 burros on 1,000,000 acres in the Black Mountains and they must go, they say with urgency in their voices. The burros are breeding like rabbits because there are 8,000 burros on our Federal lands! They must be eliminated! (the 8,000 figure is BLM’s number for burros on all Federal lands in the west. Our number places them at closer to 3,000 left in the wild on Federal lands.) https://www.facebook.com/notes/marj… Clearly, the crisis they have whipped to a frenzy is a fantasy. AZ is bowing to the wishes of the Arizona Bighorn Sheep Society who dictates to game managers how bighorn are managed through their pocketbooks and tag sales. How does the hysteria of only 70,000 bighorn left in the wild, reconcile with their equally frenetic hysteria of the burros being over-populated at 8,000? Can they spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e? A species of concern is a species that drops below 50,000 in number. Clearly, it is the burros that meet the criteria of being a species of concern, the bighorn do not. Through a unanimous vote in Congress in 1971, the American people voiced their desire to protect wild horses and burros. AZ game hunters and welfare ranchers cannot ignore the people’s wishes and quietly manage to extinction our wild equid. Americans care.
My blood boils at the money spent on preserving the bighorn to the extent that the money is used to wipe out species deemed unworthy by these people who have God complexes. They scream, that the bighorn are endangered! They say, there are only 70,000 bighorn and they must be protected! How does this jive with their equally hysterical rants that the burros are “over populated”. They ring their hands and wonder how can the BLM can allow this gross overpopulation? There are 1,800 burros on 1,000,000 acres in the Black Mountains and they must go, they say with urgency in their voices. The burros are breeding like rabbits because there are 8,000 burros on our Federal lands! They must be eliminated! (the 8,000 figure is BLM’s number for burros on all Federal lands in the west. Our number places them at closer to 3,000 left in the wild on Federal lands.) https://www.facebook.com/notes/marj… Clearly, the crisis they have whipped to a frenzy is a fantasy. AZ is bowing to the wishes of the Arizona Bighorn Sheep Society who dictates to game managers how bighorn are managed through their pocketbooks and tag sales. How does the hysteria of only 70,000 bighorn left in the wild, reconcile with their equally frenetic hysteria of the burros being over-populated at 8,000? Can they spell h-y-p-o-c-r-i-t-e? A species of concern is a species that drops below 50,000 in number. Clearly, it is the burros that meet the criteria of being a species of concern, the bighorn do not. Through a unanimous vote in Congress in 1971, the American people voiced their desire to protect wild horses and burros. AZ game hunters and welfare ranchers cannot ignore the people’s wishes and quietly manage to extinction our wild equid. Americans care.
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WILD BURROS..will they disappear forever?
Dr. Lori Eggert, University of Missouri – Genetic Diversity
BLM Advisory Board meeting Sept 9-11, 2013
Genetic diversity of burro populations well below what you would see in healthy populations.
12 burro HMAs with populations between 2 and 49 animals.
Burro populations do need priority for genetic management.
Maintenance of genetic diversity over time is going to require higher population size than even the largest HMA now has.
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WILD HORSES OF AMERICA 15 new photos.
https://www.facebook.com/wildhorsesofamericafoundation/
Photos from Day 2 (12 April 2016) of the Sinbad burro helicopter gather.
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One alternative the BLM continually fails to address is 43 C.F.R. § 4710.5(a). which states, “As made clear by the Wild Horse and Burro Act’s implementing regulations, the BLM “may close appropriate areas of the public lands to grazing use by all or a particular kind of livestock . . . if necessary to provide habitat for wild horses or burros, to implement herd management actions, or to PROTECT WILD HORSES OR BURROS FROM DISEASE, HARASSMENT OR INJURY.”
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Is that an armed guard in the background?
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Study: Livestock Grazing on Public Lands Cost Taxpayers $1 Billion Over Past Decade
https://www.biologicaldiversity.org/news/press_releases/2015/grazing-01-28-2015.html
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Monsanto Lovin’ “Conservation” Cowboys push to Kill Wild Horses
https://rtfitchauthor.com/2012/10/28/monsanto-lovin-conservation-cowboys-push-to-kill-wild-horses/
by Debbie Coffey, Director of Wild Horse Affairs for Wild Horse Freedom Federation
Reprinted from the pages of the PPJ Gazette
“If Callie Hendrickson is so worried about conservation, why didn’t she bust a gut talking about the “degraded resources for all” caused by Monsanto and the other sponsors of the NACD annual meeting?”
When representatives of Conservation Districts with ties to Monsanto attended the last Bureau of Land Management’s National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory Board meeting, they not only pushed for the roundup of wild horses & burros, they pushed to have the wild horses & burros sold for slaughter.
Wait a minute, these organizations have the word “conservation” in their titles, don’t they? So what’s going on?
Right before the last Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board meeting in Reno, theNational Association of Conservation Districts (NACD) had their big annual meeting in Las Vegas. The NACD meeting was sponsored by Monsanto, Bayer Crop Science, DuPont, Sygenta and Pioneer, the biggest producers of thegenetically engineered crops on the planet.
At NACD’s meeting, Monsanto sponsored a radio broadcast on Agritalk and NACD President Gene Schmidt and First Vice President Earl Garber were interviewed. (So was Rick Cole, Director of Weed Resistance for Monsanto.)
For NACD’s live auction, Monsanto donated four 30-gallon containers of Roundup Power Max.
At the NACD meeting, Callie Hendrickson, appointed by Secretary of the Interior Ken Salazar to represent the general public (is Monsanto the general public?) on the National Wild Horse & Burro Advisory Board, gave a presentation. She madeunsubstantiated claims regarding wild horses & burros, including the statement that wild horses “degraded resources for all.”
If Callie is so worried about conservation, why didn’t she bust a gut talking about the “degraded resources for all” caused by Monsanto and the other sponsors of the NACD annual meeting?
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TONIGHT (Wednesday, 6 April) on Wild Horse & Burro Radio: Karen Sussman, President of the International Society for the Protection of Mustangs and Burros (ISPMB).
Karen will talk about the history of BLM’s push for “sale authority” (so that wild horses & burros could be sent to slaughter), breaking the myth of using PZP fertility control to keep wild horses and burros on the land, and natural management as the best management for wild horses and burros.
http://www.blogtalkradio.com/marti-oakley/2016/04/07/ts-radio-wild-horse-burro-radio-guest-karen-sussman-president-ispmb
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Arrogant Experts
http://www.adrianberry.net/experts.htm
Beware of trusting experts, even when they claim to represent “mainstream scientific opinion’’
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The WILDLIFE SOCIETY (and its partners)
THE WILDLIFE SOCIETY PARTNERS
http://wildlife.org/supporters/
WILDLIFE SERVICES
The killing agency: Wildlife Services’ brutal methods leave a trail of animal death
http://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/wildlife-investigation/article2574599.html
A Bee investigation has found Wildlife Service’s practices to be indiscriminate, at odds with science, inhumane and sometimes illegal.
Read more here: http://www.sacbee.com/news/investigations/wildlife-investigation/article2574599.html#storylink=cpy
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